Articles (1 - 20 of 97)

Given the recent thawing in political attitudes in New South Wales and Victoria towards so-called medical marijuana, one could be forgiven for assuming that the medical care of certain individuals is being…

One of the much-heralded platforms of the Abbott government is its promise to business to reduce red tape and burdensome regulatory obligations. Pharmaceuticals are a multi-billion dollar global industry…

During a conference-related sojourn in Florence a while ago, I had the opportunity to visit the Museo Galileo to pay homage to one of my intellectual heroes. As well as having a giftshop that I haunted…

At a time of year when we are flooded with advertisements for detox and weight loss products, I’ve been doing some detoxing of my own. Specifically, a day of fasting and bowel preparation for my colonscopy…

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” - Otto von Bismarck So as well as deciding to financially kneecap bulk-billing GPs, the Federal Government has…

Australia’s oxycodone problem has thankfully not risen to the heights of the public health disaster that the USA is dealing with, but it’s been bad enough. Mundipharma, the company that makes OxyContin…

If the news coming out of Canbera tonight is accurate, the Federal Government has finally realized that their GP co-payment (really a tax given the way they intended to implement it) is actually what Rampaging…

Pharmacists are consistently held up as among the most respected and trusted of professionals. They fulfil an important role within the health professions of being the gatekeepers of medication dispensing…

I built this kingdom up from nothing. When I started, all I had was swamp! Other kings said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show ‘em! It sank into the swamp…

There may be many pitfalls in an argument which equates sensation in humans with nervous discharges from frogs skin. – Edgar Adrian, 1932 Nobel Prize in Medicine Humans seem to experience pain, whether…

Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are reliev’d, Or not at all. [1600-1 Shakespeare Hamlet iv. iii. 9] There are few more emotional decisions in medicine than the appropriate way to treat…

_“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so…

The latest contribution from the Federal Government in what is rapidly becoming a pogrom against those Australians beset by illness or disability is the interim report entitled A New System for Better…

Only around 10% of the codeine dose will give you analgesia, but 100% of it will give you side effects.
Andrzej WiluszMay 26 2014

Commonly used over-the-counter painkillers such as paracetamol, aspirin and ibuprofen will usually be strong enough to alleviate common aches and pains. But if you’re suffering from acute pain from dental…

It seems inevitable according to most commentators that some type of reassessment of DSP recipients under 35 will be introduced into the Budget tonight. Figures as high as 30,000 people to be affected…

Hidden among the chocolates and general festivity over the weekend was a nasty little surprise for those who receive the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Apparently the Federal Government’s suspicion…

The publication of a paper in Nature describing “stimulus-triggered acquisition of pluripotency” (STAP) caused an international sensation. It was potentially the Holy Grail of stem cell research - how…

The dispute about new contracts that senior doctors are being presented with in Queensland is the most serious medico-industrial campaign in recent memory. The details of the negotiations are outside the…

Once upon a time, not too long ago, ‘whiplash injury’ was regarded as a prototypical malingerer’s diagnosis. I can even remember an episode of the Brady Bunch where the dad ‘proved’ the plaintiff in a…